It Can’t Happen Here was the title of Sinclair Lewis’s celebrated 1935 novel about fascism in America. It didn’t then, and many well-informed Americans — Republicans and Democrats — believed that the election of Donald Trump wouldn’t happen either.

Italy might once have fallen for Silvio Berlusconi. Britain might have opted for Brexit. But Mr Trump, the property mogul-turned-reality TV star, would never get past the American people. The most generous forecasts, such as that of statistician Nate Silver, gave him a one-in-three chance of taking the White House just days before the election.

Then came the night of Mr Trump’s triumph. It was one that few with even the faintest political awareness will ever forget. Almost everyone turned out to be wrong — everyone, that is, except the man who apparently lived in a fantasy world. “It is going to be Brexit times five,” Mr Trump said during the campaign. For once he may have been understating things.